


Armenelos Beneath the Sea

by SheBit



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Other - Freeform, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 18:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheBit/pseuds/SheBit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edgar Allen Poe's poem 'City Beneath the Sea' transposed to Middle-Earth, to refer to the sunken cities of Numenor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armenelos Beneath the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

Lo! Sauron has reared himself a throne  
In a strange city lying alone  
Far down within the dim West,  
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best  
Have gone to their eternal rest.  
There shrines and palaces and towers  
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)  
Resemble nothing that is ours.  
Around, by lifting winds forgot,  
Resignedly beneath the sky  
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from holy menel come down  
On the long night-time of that town;  
But light from out the lurid sea  
Streams up the turrets silently--  
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free--  
Up domes--up spires--up kingly halls--  
Up fanes--up Nargothrond-like walls--  
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers  
Of sculptured mallorn and stone flowers--  
Up many and many a marvellous shrine  
Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine  
The Elanor and Symbelmyn.  
Resignedly beneath the sky  
The melancholy waters lie.  
So blend the turrets and shadows there  
That all seem pendulous in air,  
While from a proud tower in the town  
Sauron looks gigantic'lly down.

There open fanes and gaping graves  
Yawn level with the luminous waves;  
But not the riches there that lie  
In each Vala's diamond eye--  
Not the gaily-jewelled dead  
Tempt the waters from their bed;  
For no ripples curl, alas!  
Along that wilderness of glass--  
No swellings tell that winds may be  
Upon some far-off happier sea--  
No heavings hint that winds have been  
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!  
The wave--there is a movement there!  
As if the towers had thrust aside,  
In slightly sinking, the dull tide--  
As if their tops did feebly rippeth  
A void within the filmy Gilith.  
The waves have now a redder glow--  
The hours are breathing faint and low--  
And when, amid no earthly moans,  
Down, down that town shall settle hence  
Angband, rising from a thousand thrones,  
Shall do it reverence

 

 

_Disclaimer: While some lines have been altered, this poem is predominantly the work of Edgar Allan Poe and no plagiarism is intended._


End file.
